Back to School Dinner Party

Many families are getting ready for Back to School time here in the Northeast. A special way to mark this time of year is with a Back to School Dinner Party with your family.  It's a great time to sit down, hear about goals and thoughts on the upcoming year and reflect back on your summer. Here are our top 5 ways to make your Back to School Dinner Party a special one.

1) Plan the menu with your kids - You can come up with a special food for each subject taught in their classes (Art definitely lends itself to dessert and Phys Ed can be represented by relay races outside to work up an appetite) or each child gets to include their favorite food in the meal. Anyway that you like it, make sure the kids have a voice and are excited about the dinner and the school year ahead.

2) Play 20 Questions - Put a bowl in the center of the table with 20 questions about the school year. They can be academic questions (What are you most looking forward to reading this year?), emotional questions (Which friends are you happy to see in you class? Are you feeling nervous at all?) or extracurricular questions (What sports team or after school club are you most excited to join?). With little ones, you can review the math and spelling skills that they picked up the year before.

3) Using our chalkboard pouches, you can label each place setting with a topic for school and that person at the setting is in charge of asking everyone how they feel about the topic or make it pop quiz time!

4) Tuck fresh pencils, crayons or markers into their silverware pouches, line the table with butcher paper and let their creativity flow during dinner. Nothing says fresh potential like a brand new box of Crayolas or a newly sharpened pencil.

5) Unwind. Tell tales about their summer highlights. Share your favorite parts of the last few months spent in the sun, sand, surf or mountains. Make this Back to School Dinner party a tradition for the night before school starts. Take those pictures that you can compare year to year as the kids grow. If you set the table for a family meal, the family discussion and memories will follow.

Best of luck to everyone in the start of the school year and be sure to check out our new Back to School Pinterest Board for more fun ideas!

Which of these ways would your family celebrate the new school year?